I would like to dip my toes into precision shooting, and I am not sure if I want/can do it full bore. I figure I will start with a few guns in my stable and spend the money on ammo and practice. But I know that all my scopes are crap, so a new scope is needed. I read a few articles here and there and if I could spend a bunch of money and get all the features a Vortex HD is what I would probably get. Since the $2.5k is not in my budget I want to figure out what is a basic scope needed to start and not suffer the frustration of crappy equipment. My club has steel out to ~500yrds so that is the max distance for now, but would like to do a precision match too. I want to get a mil/mil scope and learn to dial in for shots. I assume parallax adjustment is needed. Variable power would be nice, but is it required?

I am looking for a little guidance here as the various choices and opinions are overwhelming.

Thank you.